Of A Small Scientist
by Voidbarker
Summary: You find a tiny skeleton on a bad day. Shenanigans ensue. This is a shameless reader-insert fic. / ON HIATUS
1. A Bad Day

You weren't having the best of days today.

First the argument with your best friend over the phone, then your mother telling you that she'd miss the day out due to not being able to get to your town in time. You'd planned to take her to the local restaurant, perhaps getting a plate of fish and chips.

And it was raining pretty hard. Hell, you could feel hailstones coming on. Maybe you should have gone back to bed. So much for taking a walk to clear your head, huh?

Overall, this isn't a good day. In fact, it's one of the worse ones.

You find yourself in the public park. This was your favourite place to be. It was your favourite place to relax with your friend. Unfortunately, your friend isn't here right now, so you're alone. You enjoyed stargazing and trying to draw the trees. However, now is not the time for stargazing or marveling at the trees. You make sure to wipe some snow off of the bench, before plonking your rump onto it.

As you sit down, your foot hits a box.

There's some shuffling from below you.

You stand up, before kneeling down to look at the area under where the bench occupies. As expected, there's a box. You simply give a soft sigh. At this point, you're really hoping that it's a couple dozen kittens. Your day has been bad enough as it is. Kittens would most likely brighten things.

Pulling the box out of the shade and breathing out, you open it up.

What is inside is most definitely _not_ a kitten.


	2. Small Beginnings

It's a tiny skeleton.

You'd heard about Monsters coming up to the surface.

You didn't really care much about that. It was too much to get worked up over. Besides, it'd make the town seem a bit more livelier. Who wouldn't want to have a talking rabbit or something as a friend or a co-worker? If anything, it seemed pretty cool, in your honest, personal opinion.

That's besides the point.

Inside a box, on a pouring wet day with possible hail, is a tiny, palm-sized skeleton. You try to take a look at the sides of the box without disturbing it too much. There's writing on one of the sides.

 _PLEASE ADOPT._

You raise a brow, tugging on your beanie a little. You gently tap on the box.

A soft squeak from the inside rings out. Without hesitation, you gingerly place your hand inside.

 _Something_ climbs into it and nuzzles against it. Assumedly, it's the skeleton. You pull your hand out, cupping the both of them around the palm-sized Monster. The tiny thing shivers, looking up at you with dimmed pupils.

You wonder what kind of absolute bastard would leave a thing as small as this outside, in winter with pouring wet weather, and under a bench.

Before your anger takes control of you, there's a squeak from the Monster as it shudders. You vaguely remember having some napkins in your coat pocket, having prepared them for your trip to the restaurant (read: last chapter). You place the skeleton back in the box, and fumble with your coat pockets, procuring a couple dozen napkins and a packet of tissues.

The skeleton gives a small whimper at being put back inside the rectangular, cardboard holding cell, but stays put as you take out some tissues and place them inside. Eventually, the packet runs out. It looks up at you through bleary pupils and blurred vision, before tears come to its eyes. The skeleton proceeds to settle down in the makeshift blankets.

You look back down at it and smile, dipping a finger inside to gently rub the skeleton's head. It seems to produce a loud purr, worthy of being called a lion's. You give a little squeal at this, before picking the box up and walking back down the path that leads to the exit. "Home is only a block away." You say to the tiny skeleton, continuing on your homeward-bound journey.


	3. Introductions, and a Meal

Upon arriving at your apartment, after travelling the block and a couple of flights of stairs, you place the box on the couch, gently fishing the tiny skeleton out and placing them in your lap.

The Monster doesn't wake up straight away. It stretches a little bit, giving a soft whine and rolling over, before curling up. You gently scratch behind its back. Judging by the purring, that seems like a sweet spot! It opens its eyes, sleepily rubbing at them before looking up at you. You rub its head with a finger. The skeleton begins to purr again, giving a soft trill.

You ask if they're hungry.

They nod, almost immediately waking up with the promise of food. You get up from the couch, mosey-ing your way over to the kitchen. On the way to the kitchen, they ask a question.

"...What's your name?"

Their speech comes out as slightly glitchy, but decipherable to the human ear. You promptly respond with your name. They perk up, before introducing themselves.

"That's cool- I'm W.D. Gaster. Please, call me Aster." He chirps, nuzzling into the tips of your fingers. Needless to say, he seems happy to be in what you call home. Aster still seems a bit shivery from being in that box for god knows how long, but he's literally warming up to the apartment's heat.

Wait a moment.

Those clothes. They seem darker than what they should be. While taking him back home, you remember that you forgot to close the box lid. You give a sigh, mentally reprimanding yourself for doing something that could be potentially detrimental to this tiny skeleton's health. There's no time to look back on the past, though! Right now is right now, and you won't get anything done by standing around, doing nothing.

You have a small monster to feed, after all.

You continue on your trek to the kitchen. Placing the bitty on the kitchen counter, you open up a cupboard full of snacks and look inside. You have a lot of cereal, perhaps you could pour him a bowl and let him eat. Aster sits down, still being a bit dopey from having just been woken up. He rubs at a closed eye socket, before blinking and looking back up at you. You smile at the bitty, before gently rubbing his head with a finger. Here comes the purring again. Upon your finger being taken away, though, he just falls onto his back for a moment, before sitting up.

You grab a box of cereal and a bowl. Aster looks at you, curiosity shining in his pupils and facial expression. You slowly begin pouring it, and small clumps of cereal fall into the bowl. You ask if he wants milk with the cereal. He gives a small gasp at realizing that the cereal is his. His to eat. He shakes his head at the milk offer and you gently push the bowl a little closer to him.

He climbs into the bowl with ease, the corners of his mouth turned up in a grin as he picks up a square of Shredded Wheat and bites down into it. You notice that he has fangs. If he bites you, it'll probably hurt a bit.

After he climbs out of the bowl, you see that there's still a lot of cereal left. You pick him up. After the movement of your hand stops, he lays down, purring away. You grin at this, beginning to move out of the kitchen and into the living room.


	4. Observations

He's completely passed out.

You place him back in his box after dropping a pillow in there, and gently tuck him into an absolute clusterfuck of thin blankets. It's definitely warm enough for him, judging by how he's immediately stopped shivering. You grin at this development, and gently let a finger ghost along his head.

On his skull, there are two large, main cracks. One of them runs up from the right eye, and leads into a fissure - there's a crevice in there - other, much smaller cracks seem to splinter off of it, while the other runs down from the left eye and stops at his mouth. Then, there's a chip near to his mouth, which reveals a bit of a fang. If it gets too sore, would the skeleton be able to have paracetamol? Ibuprofen? You sure as hell don't know.

You decide not to dwell on this, and switch the TV on via the remote. You're either too lazy or too tired to get up and switch it on using the button, which is the easiest way to power the television up. Fuck it. The buttons display as Settings, Power ON, Shut down. They all lead to different menus. Settings gives you the generic things you'd see on a settings menu on a TV. Power ON gives you a yes/no prompt to power it on, unless you need to double check your settings. Shut down also leads to a yes/no prompt to shut the TV off. You select Power ON, selecting yes and confirming, and simply raise a brow as you scroll through your Netflix. Did you even have cable TV? You consider streaming a movie to your internet friends. There's the possibility that your IRL friend might join, they know your blog and what sideblogs you run. They might still be salty about that argument. _They might slander your name._

Perhaps you'll stream a movie when they're not online. Still, you don't really feel like planning around their schedule, it's annoying to do. You've never really been a busy person, aside from your job and whenever you went out to eat or go food shopping.

You check on Aster again. Unsurprisingly, he's still asleep. His position has noticeably changed, though. From when he was sprawled out on top of the pillow, he's curled into a ball. He doesn't stir nor shiver, and for a moment, you wonder if you'll actually be able to take care of a tiny, sentient being. Maybe, maybe not. You'd have to see in the near future.

Then, and only then, do you realize that you haven't even dried him off.

Rather expectedly, he's not too happy at being awoken again. In fact, he's making quite the fuss about it.

You attempt to hush him with pets and whispered promises. He calms down a little, but he's still in a wet, shivery sulk.

Taking out a few napkins, you tell him that you need to dry him off. He grumbles something, but it's too slurred from sleep for you to notice. Slowly, you begin to dab at the wet skeleton until he's sufficiently dried off. You tell him that he's dry now, he can go back to sleep. Without a word, he _flops_ into your hand. Either he's really tired, or he might be getting sick.

You'll have time to worry about that later. What you need to do is get him into a warmer spot.


End file.
